Oregon State University gives students a hefty return for their tuition dollars, group says

View full sizeStudents head to class on the campus of Oregon State University. By one measure, OSU ranked No. 34 in the country for the "return on investment" of tuition dollars.Doug Beghtel / The Oregonian

Oregon State University offers the best "return on investment" of any Oregon university with yearly tuition below $10,000 -- and ranks in the top 50 universities nationally for ROI -- in part because its graduates earn such high salaries, a new ranking says.

A new group called Affordable Colleges Online used data from the federal government along with surveys of graduates self-reported pay over their careers collected by Payscale.com to determine, dollar for dollar, which universities gave their typical graduates the best return for their tuition money.

OSU ranked No. 34 in the nation. Klamath Falls-based Oregon Tech was the only other Oregon school to crack the top 50, coming in at No. 47.

The report says OSU grads have an average starting salary of $47,000, and the median income of an OSU alum is 50 percent higher than the median income of U.S. college graduates generally.

The group also has ranked large community colleges and says Portland Community College is among the nation's most affordable large community colleges and one of only two in the Pacific Northwest to get that rating.